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gbrumfiel writes "Two independent reports show that the public and most workers received only low doses of radiation following last year's meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Nature reports that the risks presented by the doses are small, even though some are above guidelines and limits set by the Japanese government. Few people will develop cancer as a result of the accident, and those that do may never be able to conclusively link their illness to the meltdowns. The greatest risk lies with the workers who struggled in the early days to bring the reactors under control. So far no ill-effects have been detected. At Chernobyl, by contrast, the highest exposed workers died quickly from radiation sickness."

While you're thinking about selling real estate, consider the resale value of any property within the fallout zone of Fukushima. People will continue to live there, whatever the risks, because they will not be able to leave. Even if this report is correct, which seems unlikely, the long-term fallout from Fukushima will be incredibly costly. These costs need to be insured against; if they were, unsafe reactors would no longer be competitive with renewable sources of energy.

what about safer reactors? it's not unsafe reactors versus renewables (i don't like those odds btw), it's unsafe reactors versus every other form of power generation... including safer reactors which should bloody well have been built before this mess happened.

it's modded flamebait because it's inflammatory, and provides no reference but the body of text you already linked.

it sounds like one of my madder friends ranting in his facebook statuses, and is an assault on my eyes.

that's why it's modded "flamebait".

give us some backup for this one op-ed by a guy who's vested interests i am too bored to google myself (and hence you should have linked some background on him), otherwise i'll take it as a political (rather than scientific) argument and dismiss it as such.

Of course it creates panic, especially if you're big on health and safety regulations. "We want you to clean up the roof of a reactor building that has exploded, with shovels and with no hazmat and radiation protection" has never been high on anyone's list of top job assignments. The Japanese at least use a different approach.

At the levels of radiation involved at Chernobyl, I suspect that no radiation protection that existed at the time would have helped prevent most of the deaths. Traditional hazmat suits predominantly are intended to prevent inhalation and direct contact with radioactive materials when operating in areas of moderate contamination, and to allow for rapid washing of the person after exposure. When you have people dying from exposure to as much as 16 grays, no thin piece of rubber is going to make much of a difference, and even a lead apron will only go so far.

To be fair, some of the long-term deaths from cancer might have been avoided with better radiation protection, even with the limited technology available at the time, but it would have still been a disaster, and most of the people who died would probably have died anyway. Newer technologies, such as Demron, might have helped, but that wasn't invented until almost 16 years after the Chernobyl disaster.

We also have to keep in mind the evacuation of civilians and public warning (including other countries affected by the fallout). Here, the USSR was criminally negligent. Some of those deaths could have been prevented merely by not having people there.

The media in the U.S. provides so little technical detail, it seems useless. How many have reported that all 50 of Japans remaining reactors are currently shut down, or what's gone on towards phasing out reactors in Germany? Shootings, sex scandals, disasters... we get to see that. But where's the depth? How can Democracy function properly if we're not well informed, and half of what we hear is the voice of money talking?

How can Democracy function properly if we're not well informed, and half of what we hear is the voice of money talking?

The same way it functioned 200 years ago. News sources have always been biased and sensationalist, you just have the misfortune of having grown up after the 3 channel "impartial" news era.

To nearly quote Thomas Jefferson: "The man who does not read a newspaper is better informed than one who does. In that being uninformed is closer to the truth than being misinformed." (from memory, so expect a few errors)

On the phasing down of German reactors - so far, we only shut down export capacity. Germany had a massive overcapacity of nukes that were actually not needed for local production. We are still not a net importer. That's the interesting fact for me - what exactly did they have to run the rundown Isar I block in my backyard all these years? I have not seen any data on the importers of that energy. How they compensate now, I have no idea. Anyway, in the words of a professor of reactor engineering who gave a talk at a meeting I attended last months - the shutdown will have no significant consequences on the European energy grid. According to current projections, part of it will be replaced by renewables, most of it by natural gas. The climate consequences are another matter, naturally. I'd say we put up all the wind, solar and geothermal we can and get our asses into gear building a new reactor generation that does not suck as much as those currently being shut down. The research money for that, interestingly, is still there and largely unaffected by the shutdown - still way too small, though.

What's rather bizarre is that when they *did* report that the reactors are currently shut down, they said that there were no plans to restart them. So I went and checked. The Hamaoka nuclear power plant down the road from me is indeed planning on restarting. TEPCO (currently in the process of restructuring) also recently submitted it's plan to the Japanese government for future operations. It hinges on a 10% increase in electricity rates *and* the restarting of several nuclear reactors. Whether or not

Chernobyl isn't exactly over either - there's still contamination being found in both farm and game animals [wikipedia.org]. They're also building a new shelter [wikipedia.org] over the reactor as the original one is in danger of collapse. Permanent residence is still prohibited [wikipedia.org] near the reactor complex due to contamination.

Tatsuhiko Kodama, head of the radioisotope centre at the University of Tokyo and an outspoken critic of the government, questions the reports’ value. “I think international organizations should stop making hasty reports based on very short visits to Japan that don’t allow them to see what is happening locally,” he says.

What're they supposed to do? Stay there for 20+ years, asking every person every day: "How do you feel? Got any tumors? I know a guy who'll scoop them out if you agree to be a lab rat. Call this number, ask for Cave, and tell him Bill sent you."

Epidemiology is not very hard for many cash poor nations to try and set up.
Some parts of the world, e.g. ex Soviet nations don't seem to like/support the idea very much, but it should be very easy to do in Japan and the areas around Japan.
So its as easy as selecting a wide pool of people and testing them at set intervals over many years.
Counties around the world do it all the time with generations of results in known populations e.g. food, cancer, twin studies.

if he had really a data point showing that the report is wrong, he would show it and falsify the report instead of spouting politic call to authority "we are local so we know better". No you don't, you have data and can refute or you have not.

Wiki informed me his most famous scaremongering PR campaigns have revolved around these three "discoveries" passed off as engineering insights we should be terrified of:

1) If the process of rusting a hole in something happens, then, there exists a hole in it and holes are bad.2) If one liquid leaks out of a hole, then, in theory, another liquid could leak out of a hole, even if only the first previously mentioned liquid has ever leaked out of the hole.3) If

After all the lies during the events I have serious doubts about anything coming from official sources there.
Its like listing to Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf [wikipedia.org] and thinking "oh yes he has to be telling the truth this time".

I am too. There was a lot of radiation released by Fukushima. Don't tell everyone to panic but don't lie and, in effect, tell everyone they are going to be okay either. It is a known fact that gamma radiation destroys DNA. I think one can link some cancers to gamma ray exposure.

There was. The vast majority of it vanished over the past year as the iodine decayed. The majority of the remainder is now washed out to sea and will likely be indistinguishable from the normal radioisotope content of the ocean as is.

Don't tell everyone to panic but don't lie and, in effect, tell everyone they are going to be okay either.

So they'll need to do some cleanup and keep an eye on things with their doctor. It's not like everyone will have some hid

The majority of the remainder is now washed out to sea and will likely be indistinguishable from the normal radioisotope content of the ocean as is.

Well we know that isn't true because of the contaminated seafood coming from that area.

So they'll need to do some cleanup and keep an eye on things with their doctor.

"Some" clean up? Very large areas of land need to be decontaminated. Soil replaced, everything (including plants) cleaned off and checked. While protecting the people doing the cleaning.

Outside the exclusion zone children have to wear dosimeters. Lots of people bought monitoring equipment and find that levels around their new rented accommodation (since they basically lost their homes and possessions, not to mention their

Gamma emitters are moderately dangerous, but alpha emitters can safely be stored under your bed

Not quite. IANA health physicist, but from my reading of Wikipedia, alpha emitters can be the most dangerous of all if they get into your body, because then they dump all their energetic payload into a tissue-paper-width of actual tissue.

So: safe to store under your bed only if they are a solid block of metal. Not at all safe if they are breathable aerosol particles, less safe if they are particles which fall out of the sky onto your food crops or fish, even less safe if they are functional analogues of che

"...a lot of radiation released by Fukushima." [nitpick: radioactivity would be a better term than radiation]

"A lot" is not a useful description. No, really. I don't just mean you need a number. I mean a lot of mercury is released into the environment too.And there is a lot of gold in the ocean. So what?There are many variables your blanket statement does not begin to address.

Over what time period?In what physical and chemical form?With what half-lives?Into what medium?Over how large an area?How does it dif

Yeah, it's modern times. Anyway... when I read news I try to get both alternative and mainstream sources covered. I reckon, as the quote goes... truth is usually somewhere in the middle. Having said that, I read a lot recently about fukushima reactor #4. Here's a snippet:

[quote]The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.

Fairewinds Energy Education is an anti-nuclear lobbyist group. Arnie Gundersen has a masters degree in nuclear engineering, and worked in the 70's (I believe... you may have to check that) for a few years in a non-operational reactor. He then went on to spend roughly 20 years as a high school math teacher. During his tenure as a math teacher, he has worked as a consultant for various anti-nuclear lobbyist groups. The information is public record and you can find it on the internet if you look around. T

Do you have anything conclusive that proves official sources (i.e. the IAEA and NISA) have reported anything incorrectly (or without later publishing the correction)? Media reporting inside of and outside of Japan swung wildly between "everything is fine" and "next Chernobyl?!?!?" with dizzying rapidity and little provocation. And I mean 'proof' other than dodgy blogs citing the-Geiger-counter-I-built-myself-but-never-had-calibrated.

The thing I invite you to ask yourself is this: "Who lied to you?" I live in Japan and speak Japanese passably (though the vocabulary related to nuclear disasters was not a forte of mine at the beginning of the incident). One of the biggest problems I've had with this whole thing is that the information presented in the west by reputable news outlets was *different* from the information being presented in Japan. What was all the more infuriating was that the lies uncovered by the western media were never

There's been so much lying going on about the whole incident that I just can't believe anything being said about it anymore. If I lived anywhere close to it I'd demand a real investigation, not the usual "foreign 'experts' come, do a tour about the Tokio night clubs and write what they're supposed to" kind.

"Tatsuhiko Kodama, head of the radioisotope centre at the University of Tokyo and an outspoken critic of the government, questions the reports’ value. “I think international organizations should stop making hasty reports based on very short visits to Japan that don’t allow them to see what is happening locally,” he says."

Everything I've read here has been consistent with previous statements. What is it exactly that you feel they could be lying about?

The problem they're addressing with this article is that two control room workers didn't take their potassium iodate tablets, which means they received a much higher dose than they otherwise would have. Their dose is high enough that there's a chance that they would experience the effects of radiation poisoning. But they didn't.
Aside from that, their lifetime chance of deve

"Mainchi reported on Monday: The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535
fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it.
The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the
storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors.
The roof has been blown away.
If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will
overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive
substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear
Regul

Okay. I read Mainichi [mainichi.jp] nearly every day, I've yet to see this. Both the japanese and the english versions. Now it's possible during my last 3mo where out in the middle of asshole nowhere Canada with limited internet access that the story was posted. But I can't find it on their site.

The one article I did read that was about something like that came from one of the anti-nuke groups trying to string up more anti-nuke hysteria and that was back in February of this year. And it was in their perspectives sec

The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode

Those two lines don't go together logically. They got savaged because they were not ventilating the overheating pools and reactors, so H2 built up and popped each building like popcorn. There were zerohedge guys (yeah... but where else do we have free media, anyway?) crying to crack the other buildings before they explode, but no, they just kept popping. If they had popped a hole in undamaged roofs, they would not have been able to accumulate H2, leading to an inability to blow up. Management paralysis

This is total nonsense. While overheating and fire is a risk with fuel freshly removed from an operating reactor--after it has been sitting this long, nothing catastrophic will happen. The fuel rods will get a bit hotter than usual, though nothing will burn.

That said, fuel should be moved to dry cask storage or further reprocessed in a timely manner. Stockpiling huge quantities of spent fuel in pools is not a good idea, as every time you add hot fuel, that does introduce a window of danger for about six

The fuel is not all spent. Some reactors at the plant were offline for routine maintenance at the time of the quake, and their fuel was being temporarily stored in the spent fuel pool of reactor 4. I don't know what effect that has on your "window of danger for about six months", if any. According to a report on NHK a few months back, the crane for moving fuel in and out of the spent fuel pool was damaged in the earthquake, and radioactivity levels are not expected to be low enough for it to be safely rep

Japanese officials have been lying through their Orwellian teeth since day one. When I see these guys pulling some stunts like guzzling a pint of well water, having their kids play in the local playground, and building sandcastles on the beach I'll believe them.

Just as everywhere else in the developed world. (Although actual figures in US states vary between 35% and 53% of people getting cancer - no evacuations so far, despite hugely increased risk in some states.)

Chernobyl is not exactly a fair comparison. That was a massive release with so much radiation in some places you could actually taste it.

Like it or not, Fukushima actually demonstrated that in an absolutely worst case nightmare scenario the releases would not be that bad.

What I think is funny are the people who worry about getting cancer from the minuscule, barely measurable radiation drifting in weather patterns and then sit down to a breakfast of bacon and eggs. Processed meats have a much better statistical correlation for cancer than micro levels of radioactive isotopes, some of which occur naturally.

If this had happened in the US how long would it have been before we'd have seen lawyers on TV advertising legal action? I'm sure findings from independent agencies would have been completely irrelevant to the case.

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. has estimated the total amount of radioactive substances discharged from its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant measured 760,000 terabecquerels, 1.6 times the estimate released by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency in February. "http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120523005514.htm

Note that the claimed total only includes iodine-131 and cesium-137, while they forget about radioactive noble gases and other isotopes. Besides, there are no public images where one could clearly see the cap of reactor 3. If reactor 3 or it's fuel pool has thrown significant amounts of plutonium in the air, the situation is much more dramatic than admitted.

I used to be a nuclear energy fan (considering that much of the anti-nuclear sentiment is Luddite hysteria),but the Iran situation made me reconsider. I fear that nuclear power generation might advancethe proliferation of nuclear weapons.

And according to Wikipedia, solar will start reaching grid parity in 2015 and wind in 2020/2025.I think we can get by with hydro, coal (with pollution-reducing technology) and natural gasuntil 2025.

solar will never reach parity with energy demand.. we would need collectors out in space to get close.. The answer to outside threats is to attack them when they get uppity. I realize this is outside the realm of possibility for the gimpwrists who run the federal government. for them, it's easier to do the terrorists work for them by destroying our liberty with life sucking surveillance and censorship...all with corporate blessing.

I think the common factor isn't attitude. It's not having a decent science education.
But in GWB's case it was an affectation. He had the best education money could buy and code to speak a certain way because it appealed to his base.

However right now, the left is afraid of nuclear, and the right doesn't want to control it.

I'm "the left*," and I'm not afraid of nuclear; I support nuclear energy because I care about the environment and acknowledge society's need for a continually-increasing supply of (low-emission, base-load) energy. I know there are others on the left (here on Slashdot) that agree.

Nuclear tech saves many lives every day(Cancer treatment and detection), as well as powering the most likely long term energy solution.

The Japanese did not use graphite moderated reactors for very well known reasons, Chernobyl being the best example of those reasons... (Negative steam void reactivity coefficient, was a major one, iirc.)

The reactors at Chernobyl were pretty much updated versions of the ones we built during WWII to make plutonium, also iirc.

Idiocy=Bad.

Any tech is only as bad or good as what you use it for, and how you use it is your problem to explain.

Even this supposedly pro-nuclar article has lines that are decidedly unfair.

At Chernobyl, by contrast, the highest exposed workers died quickly from radiation sickness.

Technically true, yet a brilliant lie : but it blames the wrong party. Also, it neglects to mention that we're talking about 31 people here, and that these people were essentially sent INTO the reactor by their superiors, who knew full well what would happen. Some socialist bureaucrats ordered people to their death without telling them. That's what happened, these were 100% preventable deaths even after the disaster had occurred. I

Not being able to say for sure why one has cancer or some birth defects doesn't make it any less sad or less of a burden on families and healthcare.

Neither does knowing for certain. Cancer and birth defects are terrible illnesses, but the radiation levels from Fukushima are so low as to get lost in the background noise of, say, radiation from a nearby kumquat. There's no way to say the cancer was caused by Fukushima, and no way to say it wasn't caused by a nice sunny day.

No doubt many of the cancers we've had in the U.S. that were a result of the nuclear testing era weren't identified either.

Given that cancer cases have been recorded since before any nuclear tests, and all nuclear tests and fallout have been recorded, it's actually possible to figure out the probable death tolls from testing. Spoiler: they're somewhere between "nobody" and "fewer than have died this year from cholera".

Maybe the nuclear deterrent saved us, but it wasn't without a price.

Of course not. The United States dropped a 15-kiloton bomb on Hiroshima, killing 125,000 people. A few days later, a 21-kiloton bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing about 45,000. That's around 170,000 people who died for the "deterrent". Does it really matter that those people died from a nuclear bomb, or would it somehow be better if we'd dropped a ton of regular ol' incendiary bombs, then kept fighting the war for a few more years?

Say, why did the head of the NRC resign? Bad choices with Yucca Mountain? A bit slow to deal with some vulnerability? Someone under his desk? Poor health or another personal issue?

Maybe it was death threats from anti-nuclear Luddites, or, simply exhaustion from the pressure of being a public figure, or annoyance with the continual ignorance of the masses fighting against one of the most promising technologies of the 20th century.

There's no point in mass fear, the illnesses and deaths are largely spread out over both time and distance and as such pass by mostly without mention. But the deaths are still real.. The people that were alive between 1948 and 1970 (the period of exposure) are/were the primary ones affected. I've known a couple of people that turned out to be from the midwest (one of the harder hit regions from Nevada testing) who had leukemia (they're dead now). Back in the day we didn't know any better. There's a reason we eventually did away with atmospheric testing and have sought to avoid additional contamination.The incident in Japan has left much of the nation much like the U.S. is, with "background" levels elevated. (The U.S. "background" levels are about double what is seen in someplace like Australia. Except for the area hit in WWII, Japan was mostly low too.) Although a small percentage of the population is affected, the U.S. certainly has/will see some additional cancer cases from Chernobyl, the Japanese accident in 1981 (accident very well covered up, a sodium reactor leaked for months with hundred of workers exposed beyond normal limits, and was measurable in the U.S.) and later from the events of last year. Beware of "science" saying that low level radiation is good. It seems that the people doing those studies have also "shown" that mice do better with low level doses of all sorts of other nasties too. Who would have known how wonderful toxins are? (call it science concocted for defense attorneys) Absorbed like calcium, baby-boomers to this day have strontium-90 in their teeth and bones.

Certainly the risk varied considerable, and like fallout from accidents, the hotspots depended on combinations of timing, the wind, rainfall, and what one ate. For Iodine-131 there have been detailed estimates. If you were a female born in the 50's in someplace like Nebraska, and drank a fair amount of goats milk from animals that were pasture fed, the risk was (and for survivors still is) very significant. Risk was less for those drinking less, it wasn't quite as high with cows, and it was lower from animals fed hay indoors. (A lesson from that is to have a couple of months feed hay in reserve to reduce the exposure via milk during the time it takes for I-131 to go through enough half-lives)

It's only for I-131, and then only for the Nevada tests (other sources not included), but have some fun with the risk calculator if you were around back in the day.

The rest can laugh it off I suppose. The Japanese fishermen that can back to Japan with serious radiation exposure from the South Pacific tests did inspire the Godzilla and friends monster movies after all, so something good came of it.

Although a small percentage of the population is affected, the U.S. certainly has/will see some additional cancer cases from Chernobyl[...]

Yeah, from the unlucky people who were in Europe at the time. You can't seriously believe that even Chernobyl would cause any significant increase in radiation on the other side of the Atlantic + Europe?

Even in Europe, it seems the risk is small. I was in East-Berlin at the time, watching the May 1st parade (study trip). We all got checked at the border when returning 2 days later, but to our dismay none of the classmates were glowing in the dark.

But the deaths are still real.. The people that were alive between 1948 and 1970 (the period of exposure) are/were the primary ones affected. I've known a couple of people that turned out to be from the midwest (one of the harder hit regions from Nevada testing) who had leukemia (they're dead now).

You seem to have forgotten to prove that the leukemia deaths you mentioned were caused by any nuclear activity.

I mean, I know people who have died of cancer too. But there's absolutely no evidence that their can

Of course not. The United States dropped a 15-kiloton bomb on Hiroshima, killing 125,000 people. A few days later, a 21-kiloton bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, killing about 45,000. That's around 170,000 people who died for the "deterrent". Does it really matter that those people died from a nuclear bomb, or would it somehow be better if we'd dropped a ton of regular ol' incendiary bombs, then kept fighting the war for a few more years?

No, if we'd firebombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we'd probably have killed a

Cancer and birth defects are terrible illnesses, but the radiation levels from Fukushima are so low as to get lost in the background noise of, say, radiation from a nearby kumquat.

Do kumquat trees draw cesium or some other isotope from the soil like sunflowers do? Sunflower seeds often show radiation. They were even testing them in Japan as a possible measure to help clean the soil, but from what I read they didn't remove enough to be useful, and the plants themselves needed special disposal afterwards.

The U.S. levels in the air were low, yes (expect very few cases of lung cancer from that compared to other sources such as decaying radon coming from our soil, building materials, an

Maybe it was death threats from anti-nuclear Luddites, or, simply exhaustion from the pressure of being a public figure, or annoyance with the continual ignorance of the masses fighting against one of the most promising technologies of the 20th century.

Thank you for saying this. I've been trying to get this point across to people until I'm blue in the face.

Fact: More people die due to coal and oil powered plants than nuclear ones. In fact, it's about 915 times more dangerous than nuclear power, even accounting for their respective percentages of world power. In actuality, it's 161 deaths per TWH for coal, and 0.04 for nuclear. Not to mention the pollutants that don't kill human beings, but hurt

1. That article is over a year old, rendering any discussion about Iodine moot.2. Even a year ago, the levels were well below EPA standards.3. Do they even do regular testing of milk in Vermont for radiation?

Please, if you're going try and make a point then you should try to be a little less "chicken little" about it.

Over a year old. Yes, right after the reactors blew up, putting any discussion about Iodine precisely in the center of the bullseye.

And no, they weren't below EPA standards, they were at the last-gasp threshold before they started collecting the milk as radioactive waste.

No, but the detectors at the local plant started shrieking. Mind you, these are only supposed to do that when there is a local leak. As in, right there, at the plant itself. The fact that the contamination made it all the way across t

There was a docu-drama out of the UK that covered that? You could probably find it on MVGroup.org, in the Atomic Age section. Can't remember the name of it, but it was a conversation between those very men you speak about.

Worker #1: How much did you get?

W#3: I got 400.

W#2: Not bad. I got 250. You?

W#1: 750.

W#4 (The one who opened the door, in a very weak voice) I got...3000...